Domestic Art

Award-winning author Lawrence Weschler’s book on the young Mexican American artist Ramiro Gomez explores questions of social equity and the chasms between cultures and classes in America. Gomez, born in 1986 in San Bernardino, California, to undocumented Mexican immigrant parents, bridges the divide between the affluent wealthy and their usually invisible domestic help—the nannies, gardeners, housecleaners, and others who make their lifestyles possible—by inserting images of these workers into sly pastiches of iconic David Hockney paintings, subtly doctoring glossy magazine ads, and subversively slotting life-size painted cardboard cutouts into real-life situations. Domestic Scenes engages with Gomez and his work, offering an inspiring vision of the purposes and possibilities of art.